


Accidental Pokèmon Acquisition

by EternalEclipse



Category: Bleach
Genre: Alternate Universe - Pokemon Fusion, Canon-Typical Violence, Families of Choice, Gotei 13 is more openly unethical across the board than canon, M/M, Mentioned Unethical Experimentation, Minor Pokemon Death, Pre-Relationship, Protective Kurosaki Ichigo, These two were not all about talking to each other, UraIchi Prompt Challenge #4, or are they, or at least it was supposed to be
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-31
Updated: 2019-12-31
Packaged: 2021-02-25 21:53:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,728
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21932518
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EternalEclipse/pseuds/EternalEclipse
Summary: Ichigo had never wanted to be a pokèmon trainer. To be flat honest, the ghosts kept him busy enough. But when Monferno fell into his life with a burst of laughter and trouble, Ichigo is drawn into a side of the pokèmon world he didn't even know existed.Or the one where there are both ghosts and pokèmon, the Gotei 13 is a government organization with as many checks and balances as ever, and Ichigo will do whatever it takes to keep his own safe.
Relationships: Kurosaki Ichigo/Urahara Kisuke
Comments: 3
Kudos: 124
Collections: UraIchi Prompt Challenge #4





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> For the prompt 036. "I'd be nicer if I were you. I get to decide your fate, after all."

Ichigo ran into class, ten minutes late because some of the hotheaded kids who’d gotten their starters last week had decided to battle it out on the main road, and he’d decided that detouring and dealing with a weekend detention for being late would be safer than getting between a baby Mudkip’s Water Gun and its target and being even later. He slid into his seat as silently as he could. Ochi-sensei ignored it, but he knew that the punishment could and would come later.

The lecture washed over him, and Ichigo relaxed into the normality. Ochi-sensei’s Linoone sat at the front of the classroom, watching them for contraband technology as the lesson went on. Ichigo smiled at him, just a bit, as he tried to sneak out at the end of the day without his teacher noticing.

He wasn’t successful, of course, but it was the principle of the matter.

Chad was out for the week, having gotten sucked into dealing with the madness of choosing week in Naruki City with his mostly healing-focused team, which Ichigo did not envy, _at all_. Since he was on his own, he figured he would just go home for the rest of the day. He wasn’t going to get any work done in the park with the influx of new trainers, and his father could probably use the help in the clinic. Choosing weeks were always terrible. He’d stop by the convenience store for some iron rations for them both.

Half a block away from the clinic, Ichigo got bowled over by a something heavy. He hissed when something burning brushed against his arm before it squeaked and jumped away. A pokémon, he realized. Old Man Takahiro’s ghost chuckled at him as he stared after where the young Monferno had gone. Probably someone trolling the newbie trainers, if it was evolved already, and not a pre-teen who had lost control. Ichigo glared after it.

“Monkey got your tongue?” Takahiro asked from his street corner.

Ichigo grunted, shook his head, and turned back towards the clinic. He might have ghosts and patients to contend with instead of pokémon, but that didn’t make it any easier to deal with them.

The rest of his day was fairly normal for this time of year—some casualties from getting too close to new trainer fights, kids who didn’t realize their shiny new Chespins and Froakies weren’t in good enough shape to take on a grizzled old Raticate who wouldn’t have disturbed them anyway, or a group of them. And there were the lucky ones who tried to do it by themselves now that they were trainers, and lived to tell the tale.

They were just finally closing the clinic for the night, thirty minutes before midnight, when a police officer came through their door.

“Hi, I’m Officer Jenny. We’ve gotten reports of a troublesome Monferno in the area, no trainer identified,” the officer intoned. “Have you seen or heard anything about him?”

“We sent one of those reports in,” Isshin replied tiredly. “Monferno hasn’t been challenging other pokémon to a fight, but only because he’s dodging too fast. He’s made a few small fires we’ve had to put out. The only thing is that he was too fast for anyone to catch.”

“I see,” Officer Jenny frowned at them. “We’ll see if we can’t track him down when he’s sleeping. In the interim, please keep your pokémon at hand to help.”

Ichigo kindly didn’t mention that he didn’t have that kind of protection as he ushered her out the door. It wouldn’t change anything anyway, and Takahiro or one of the other town ghosts would warn him if he could see Monferno. That was as good as he was going to get. He also didn’t mention the bandaged burn he’d covered with his sleeve. It didn’t hurt anymore, but he’d check on it in the morning just in case, and take off the bandage before classes. If his theory was right, Monferno didn’t need a kill team coming after him for accidentally hurting humans.

* * *

Ichigo left the house even earlier the next morning, in hopes of avoiding the new trainers. He was so distracted by watching out for battles it took him a moment to figure out that something was off, and what was going on, and only after the stench of burning hair filled his nose. By that point, Monferno had catapulted himself up back off of his head, onto a streetlamp and was looking down on him, laughing.

Ichigo glared up at it, patting the back of his head. “And what was that? You’re not a little Chimchar anymore, you have to be careful!”

Monferno stopped laughing immediately, and jumped back onto his head for just long enough to jump away in the other direction, using his tail to make up for the longer distance. Ichigo watched until Monferno was out of sight, wondering what just happened.

The next two days, Monferno stayed away. Ichigo knew that he was still causing trouble, and wondered why one of the new young trainers hadn’t managed to catch him yet, if he was unbonded. Monferno didn’t seem like he was all that old, and he mostly was the type to escape rather than attack. The police came by again, a tall man this time, and told them that they’d gone up the chain of command and that someone was going to take care of it, because it was too unsafe for a pokémon as strong as Monferno to hang around unbonded in a city.

The third day, the specialist showed. Tall, with blonde hair that was unkempt enough that Ichigo couldn’t tell if the man was foreign or just using bad dye, and skinny as skim milk. And good at acting invisible as well, since Ichigo first mistook him for a ghost. No one living had that kind of sense of fashion, if it could be termed as such.

Still, it had made their first interaction interesting.

_“Hmm, and you would be Kurosaki Ichigo then. It’s good to meet you,” The ghost turned up out of nowhere, as they often did, and Ichigo flinched, hands curling into fists just in case. He was hiding half his face behind a fan, smug as a baby trainer, and vaguely attractive in a way that Ichigo had long since learned to ignore in the newly dead._

_Ichigo scowled right back at him. “If you’re looking to move on, I can’t help you with that.”_

_“Move on?”_

_There was a flutter of rather long eyelashes that struck Ichigo as overdone. He rolled his eyes. “Look, uh—what’s your name?”_

_“Specialist Urahara.”_

_Ichigo had visibly reared back, finally realizing that the guy wasn’t a ghost. “The League sent a Specialist for one little Monferno?” Ichigo squinted at him. “Does someone up top hate you or something?”_

_Urahara’s smile became fixed. Bad topic then, oops. Someone probably did, in a way that was way above Ichigo’s nonexistent paygrade. “When was the last time you saw the rogue?”_

_“Me, personally? Three days ago. And it’s a pokémon, not a rogue. His trainer might have left him or something, but he hasn’t hurt anyone, and he won’t.”_

_“And how do you know this for sure?”_

_The specialist’s sudden seriousness caught his attention, but it wasn’t important. Monferno was. “Because I’ve met him a couple times now. He’s playful and mischievous, not malicious.”_

_And the seriousness was gone, just like that. “Hmmm, I see.”_

_Ichigo scowled harder. He really didn’t understand the guy, but he wasn’t sure he liked what he was seeing. Monferno wasn’t causing a lot of trouble, small fires aside and even when he tried he wasn’t all that strong. Ichigo had healed from that first burn in a matter of hours, and even a baby unevolved Chimchar could have taken it much further than that if they’d wanted to. With how he was socializing, most likely some trainer or family would catch his fancy, or he’d move out somewhere where there was more food. The city wasn’t a Monferno’s true home, but pokémon were adaptable._

_He took a breath and turned away from the specialist. “If that’s all, I’m no help for you. I’ve got to get to class.”_

_Urahara tipped his hat. “Good luck at school, Kurosaki-san. I will be back if it seems like that would be helpful. And, of course, please report any sightings of the rogue to me. I will be keeping a close eye on him.”_

_“Fine.” Ichigo pushed past the man, refusing to look back. He had bigger fish to fry._

Ichigo told his friends about Specialist Urahara during lunch. Chad and Orihime were both still out dealing with the new trainers, and Ishida had only just gotten back into town, but Tatsuki, Keigo, and Mizuiro were there, with Mizuiro’s Jolteon laying across his legs and Keigo’s Paras stealing bites from Tatsuki’s food when she wasn’t looking. Tatsuki’s team usually looked after the dojo during the day, so they weren’t there, but the five of them were plenty. He’d thought that Mizuiro might have had something to say, being a fairly serious trainer with a nationally-ranked team, but it was Tatsuki that beat him to the punch.

“Why’s a Specialist out here when it hasn’t even been a week since Monferno showed up?” she demanded. “There are never enough of them, so why here?”

“Probably riled up with all of the new trainers,” Mizuiro added. He pushed his hair out of his face to look them in the eye. “And Monferno’s not a common one in the wild around these parts. It’s probably trainer negligence, and with an evolved pokémon that can be dangerous.”

“Monferno’s not dangerous!” Ichigo scowled at them. “He’s just playing around. He’s not hurting anyone either.”

“Woah, Ichigo’s sounding like a cool pokémon trainer now!” Keigo enthused. Paras lifted a foot in agreement.

“I’m not about to get any pokémon anytime soon, idiot.” Ichigo flicked Keigo’s shoulder. “I’m just worried.”

“You worry over everyone, but usually mostly when they’re yours,” Tatsuki observed. “I don’t know Monferno, mostly because he hasn’t come down my way yet. If I come with you after school today, will you introduce me?”

“Us?” Mizuiro added.

Then they’re all looking at Ichigo—and Ichigo might be oblivious a lot of the time, but he was never good at telling a group of people who wanted his help no, especially not when they were his friends. “Fine,” he grumbled.

And that was the end of that.

The rest of the day passed quickly, and things seemed easy on his way home. No baby trainers, for once. But Monferno was waiting for him by Takahiro’s corner when he got there. He was pretending he wasn’t, but Ichigo had spent enough time around pokémon to know better, even without any of his own.

He didn’t know _why_ Monferno was there, of course, but he could offer a bit of food and an introduction to his friends. He dug the ripe orange out of his jacket while he was still out of the pokémon’s line of sight, and began gesturing with it as he made a point to Tatsuki.

Just as he expected, a few moments after he turned the corner Monferno dropped onto his head again for just long enough to steal the fruit out of his hand before jumping back onto a lightpost. It sat there, laughing at them for a moment before peeling the fruit tauntingly.

“I suppose it’s been difficult finding good fruit when you don’t have a trainer,” Keigo thought aloud. Monferno tensed, and Ichigo sent a protective glare Keigo’s way.

Tatsuki, meanwhile, smiled. “Hi, Monferno. I’m Tatsuki, one of Ichigo’s friends. These are Keigo and Mizuiro.”

Mizuiro also turned his attention to Monferno. “Ignore anything that comes out of Keigo’s mouth, he doesn’t mean badly but he also is an absolute idiot.”

Monferno relaxed, and laughed again, even if it was a bit more strained. He chucked the orange peel at Keigo’s head, and watched as the group laughed at their friend. He jumped down again, using Ichigo’s head as a jumping point before moving on. Ichigo chose to count that one as a victory, even if he wasn’t sure about the look in Mizuiro’s eyes. He also didn’t notice the figure down the street, who’d also seen the entire event.

* * *

That started Ichigo picking up the habit of stopping in at a convenience store on his way home from school every day to get fruit for Monferno. The monkey pokémon was always waiting for him at the street corner, and was usually pleased by Ichigo’s offerings. Reports of trouble had gone down as well, making Ichigo wonder if Monferno hadn’t just been looking for food and attention.

Ichigo’s friends didn’t keep coming with him, busy with their own things—some of the new trainers had gotten over themselves enough to start training at the dojo, and anywhere they could get someone stop long enough to give advice really. The only good side of that was that with more people going to the PokéCenters, not as many people needed the clinic, and they could start closing on time again.

The specialist had mostly disappeared as well. That was no big loss, as far as Ichigo was concerned, especially because he hadn’t done anything Ichigo could see to hurt Monferno.

He noticed several times over the next few weeks that Monferno followed him around sometimes when he made his rounds to talk to the ghosts in town. He’d even led Ichigo to an intersection where there had been an accident a few hours before, and there was a pair of new ghosts who needed someone to talk to before moving on.

He even thought he might have heard Monferno say something to them after he’d turned to go. He tried not to let the thought make him jealous—Monferno certainly hadn’t said anything to him during their acquaintanceship.

The real turning point for them was when the monster came for them. Ichigo had once thought that the monsters were a pokémon, until he realized that only the ghosts could see them, and not even living ghost pokémon, or any other kind. The monsters came sometimes when there were a lot of ghosts around, or ones that were new.

In short, Ichigo should not have been as surprised as he was when a monster showed up for the new couple. Maybe it had been because he’d been watching Monferno at the time. Monferno had turned to put himself as a barrier between the ghosts and the monster once it howled at him.

Ichigo had never met a pokémon who could see the monsters before. He’d barely managed to get the ghost couple running away from the scene when he saw Monferno launched an ember attack at the beast from the corner of his eye. The monster screeched as its torso burned.

“Monferno, get away from it!” Ichigo called back even as the monster charged Monferno.

Monferno didn’t listen to him. Instead, it jumped forward, launching its claws at the monster’s face, sharpened nails going right through the monster’s mask. The monster yelled one more time, more surprise than anything, before it stopped and shattered. Ichigo hadn’t seen anything like it. Monferno looked back at him with the ghosts for just a moment before jumping away.

Ichigo turned back to the terrified ghosts with a tired frown. One thing at a time.

The ghosts were gone the next day when he went to check on him. Ichigo guessed they’d moved on. He briefly wondered if Monferno had as well, when he didn’t appear at his usual corner. Ichigo left the kumquat where it wouldn’t be stepped on near the usual lamppost and went home.

The kumquat was gone by the next time he checked, but it took Monferno another three days to show up, back in his usual corner like nothing had happened. Ichigo tossed another kumquat at him on his way home, and pretended he wasn’t aware of how the pokémon watched him until he walked into the clinic.

Ichigo wasn’t as surprised as he might have been when Monferno knocked his window open and tumbled into his room. He got up from where he’d been reading his English assignment du jour to check on the pokémon. “Oi, what are you doing here?”

Monferno ignored him, sniffing at the room as if Ichigo had some hidden pile of fruit somewhere.

And then they heard it—a monster’s roar, and close. Ichigo rushed over to his window, only to see that it was right in front of his home. He rushed towards the door, only stopped for a moment by Monferno pushing in front of him protectively.

The sight that met them on the first floor horrified Ichigo. His father had been out with a patient that had to be moved to the main hospital, but Karin lay, bloodied but breathing, against the kitchen wall, and the monster had Yuzu in its grasp.

Monferno let out a roar, but Ichigo moved first. He picked up Karin’s baseball bat, which had been resting by the bottom of the stairs, and hit the arm that held Yuzu. Somehow, the monster let go of her, and he caught hold of her as she fell.

Moments later, Monferno launched a powerful flame wheel attack at the monster. It pushed the thing out into the street, but it was regenerating quickly.

Ichigo kissed Yuzu on the forehead and set her down. “Stay here,” he told her, picking up the baseball bat from where it had rolled after he’d dropped it, thankfully away from the monster.

“Don’t get hurt,” Yuzu begged him. Ichigo managed a small smile for her before he followed Monferno out onto the street.

Monferno had set up to fight the monster as best he could. Ichigo saw the preparations for another flame wheel even as the monster tried to hit them. Ichigo batted away the monster’s arm even as the flame wheel crashed against its side.

Not enough. The monster was regenerating, and Monferno was tiring. Ichigo was going to have to do something stupid to get to the head, or neither of them would get out of this alive. For a moment, he considered trying to strategize with Monferno, but the pokémon had more interest in acting on its own apparently, scratching it several times in a row before falling back.

And then the monster was sliced in half too quickly for Ichigo’s eyes to see what did it. It shattered, and Ichigo looked around on the dark street. “Who’s there?” He called out.

Monferno called out from behind him, and Ichigo spun, brandishing the bat—only to see a pokéball where Monferno had been.

By the time Ichigo had comprehended the situation, Specialist Urahara had emerged from the shadows. Ichigo instinctively put himself between Urahara and Monferno’s pokéball when the man began walking towards them. Urahara stopped and put up his hands as if to show helplessness, a cane Ichigo didn’t recognize grasped in one of them.

“Is something wrong?” Urahara asked guilelessly.

“What did you do to the monster?” Ichigo demanded. “And release Monferno, he didn’t do anything to you!”

“Monster?” Urahara adopted a thoughtful look, but Ichigo could tell that it was fake. “I just heard a disturbance. Emergency services are on their way; I believe some of your neighbors called them in with all the noise. I’ll be taking Monferno for safe keeping until all the reports are filed, but for now don’t you think you have greater responsibilities at the moment?”

At that moment, a siren began wailing within Ichigo’s range of hearing. His grip on the bat slackened, and he stepped back towards his house, where his sisters did definitely need help.

He stopped and spared a look at Monferno, which Urahara noted. “Monferno is legally my pokémon,” Urahara stated. “You have no claim on him anymore.”

Ichigo knew that. At this point, if he touched Monferno’s pokéball after Urahara warned him off, he could be charged with assault. He nearly did it anyway. Monferno might be wild and a nuisance, but he had defended Ichigo’s sisters and earned his eternal gratitude.

Seeing Ichigo’s determination, Urahara softened his tone. “I’ll be in touch. Monferno will be fine, and you will see him again. Tend to your sisters, and I’ll see to it that Monferno gets proper medical care.” 

Urahara approached, light glinting off his eyes through the hat. He picked up the pokémon and shared a long look with Ichigo. Ichigo didn’t know why he didn’t push against him harder. Capitulation wasn’t in his nature. But he didn’t give Urahara any more trouble as the man tipped his hat at him and left.

The next thing Ichigo remembered was waking up in his bed the next morning. He must have gone back into the house and checked on his sisters, he remembered that vaguely. As he tried to recall the details, they came to him. Isshin had appeared not long after the first responders, yelling for his kids. Ichigo had a vague recollection of seeing Urahara again, but he half-thought that that had happened in a dream, because why else would the man be around?

The next morning dawned even brighter than usual through the holes in their walls. Ichigo winced when Yuzu handed him a bowl, exhausted from not sleeping enough.

“Daddy said that someone was coming by while we’re in school,” Yuzu smiled tentatively.

Ichigo grunted in assent as Karin joined them. They all ate silently for a moment, and even Yuzu was not awake enough to try for some kind of conversation. By mutual agreement, they snuck out of the house before Isshin could interrupt them. Their father was difficult on a good day, and after the events of the early morning, this demonstrably wasn’t one.

By the time Ichigo dropped the girls off at their school, he learned that the attack had been blamed on a rogue pokémon, but one that remained as of yet unidentified.

Ichigo knew then that he had to do something. Someone would start blaming Monferno, and he owed the little menace a debt for helping to save his family. Even if he had to steal him from Specialist Urahara, he’d figure it out.

That afternoon, he’d said a quick farewell to his worried friends before taking to the streets to seek out Specialist Urahara. His pretty blonde hair would be a beacon in the crowds, as long as he hadn’t already been reassigned somewhere. It was a legitimate worry—this was the busiest time of year for anyone in anything related to pokémon.

Ichigo eventually returned home, empty handed. He called out to Yuzu as he shucked off his street shoes.

“In the kitchen!” Yuzu called back. “And why are you late? You’ve got a guest!”

Ichigo rushed into the room, only to see Specialist Urahara sitting at the table, drinking tea, smiling.

* * *

They had it out in the nearest park. Ichigo tried to choose the corner with the fewest ghosts that still had a bench. Urahara didn’t make a fuss, which was good for him as far as Ichigo was concerned. If the man hadn’t had Monferno tucked away somewhere, Ichigo might have been tempted to punch the smug look off his face.

“Have you seen the, ah, monsters, you called them? For very long?” Urahara opened.

“What?”

“And the ghosts, of course. Like the child sitting in that tree.”

Ichigo looked, although he didn’t need to. There was little Watanabe Hinata, who had tragically died of a terminal illness the year before, and had immediately after made her way to the park she always went to with her parents. Ichigo had never known what to say to her when she asked where those parents were.

“What about it?” Ichigo forced himself to be cautious.

“There aren’t that many people who can see them after all, although I share the talent.” Urahara shrugged. “Perhaps you might be interested in joining my division once you finish with school? We tend to specialize in dealing with the ghosts those who can see it.”

“Like Monferno?”

“Like Monferno.” Well. Ichigo guessed it was good to have it confirmed that he hadn’t been going crazy.

“Where is he?”

“Somewhere safe. I located his former trainer, and watched as he officially released Monferno into my care. It’s likely he will be brought back to my division to either learn to work with us, or to be otherwise contained.” Urahara smiled, but in a way that made him look like a cat that successfully hunted birds.

Ichigo wasn’t sure what face he was making, but it made Urahara laugh.

“I see you’ve gotten attached already. You might as well forget him, now.”

“Monferno saved my family, I’m not forgetting him!” Ichigo protested. “And what do you even do, aside from steal pokémon?”

“I do not steal pokémon,” Urahara said softly. Something in the air made Ichigo’s skin prickle, but he stood firm.

“But does Monferno want to go with you? He’s fine where he is, and I’ll claim him if that’s what it takes to get him back.”

Ichigo’s eyes blazed with determination, and he stared right into Urahara’s eyes. Warmer than he’d thought, those grey eyes were. Ichigo also noticed a hand straying to a pokéball on Urahara’s belt. Monferno might not be as far as he thought.

Or not. “Does it matter?” Urahara asked. “You don’t even have a pokémon trainer license, and Monferno is a dangerous, evolved pokémon. Unless—” he fluttered his eyelashes at Ichigo, who was scowling harder than ever “Unless you could be tempted into joining with him. I’m sure something can be arranged.”

“That’s blackmail.” Ichigo’s voice was blank.

“It’s an offer,” Urahara shrugged, and stood. “Will you take it?”


	2. Chapter 2

So that was how Ichigo ended up on his back in Urahara’s basement. For three weeks, Ichigo had gone to Urahara’s local accommodations every day after school, to train. Ostensibly, Urahara had some way of fast-tracking a trainer license, but only if Ichigo trained with him. Once, Urahara had tried to get him to train in nothing but pink boxers and a flowing headband, but for the most part it was physical training even beyond what he’d seen before. Most of the time Ichigo thought that Urahara might want him to fail, but he refused to give in. And in those weeks Ichigo hadn’t once seen Monferno.

Not until that day, when, instead of their usual routine, Urahara had been sitting in the kitchen with a steaming cup of tea and a pokéball in front of him.

Ichigo stood in the doorway, staring at it. “Oi, Urahara-san, who’s that?”

And Urahara looked up at him, as if he didn’t have the supernatural reflexes Ichigo knew him to have, and blinked. “Oh, come and sit, Kurosaki-san. That’s exactly who you think it is, but I thought it was important to set some guidelines before you two begin working with each other.”

Ichigo nearly snarled at him, but sat down. Urahara didn’t say anything, but Ichigo could read the satisfaction off his pretty little face. Blackmailer, Ichigo reminded himself. Of course he was satisfied by a scheme going well. It was just a stupid power play, just like every schoolyard bully he’d ever met.

Urahara sipped his tea. “Excellent,” he murmured. “Now, you’re aware that Monferno is an unusual pokémon, yes? Did he ever tell you why?”

“Tell me?” Ichigo shook his head. “He didn’t talk in front of me at all. Why?”

“Human experimentation.” Urahara tapped his fingers against the table, watching Ichigo’s face. “I thought it might be the case at the time, but I haven’t been able to confirm it until recently. There was an experiment done on several pokémon to see whether they could be made to see ghosts, to help with monitoring in the living world. Half of the pokémon involved were Ghost types, and the other half whatever they had on hand. The project was shut down years ago, after a Misdreavus went from mischievous to murderous, killing several of the researchers. I believe Monferno escaped somehow.”

Ichigo’s grip slackend, and his own tea splashed onto the table. “Seriously? What the hell?”

Urahara went on regardless. “It’s highly likely that, in addition to his ability to see souls, Monferno can speak a human language. He also may be significantly more intelligent than other pokémon, or have different interests.”

“But wait, how’d he even get to Karakura then?”

“Karakura is a spiritual hotspot.” Urahara shrugged. “I’m more interested in how you can see them.”

It wasn’t quite a threat, and Ichigo backed off before it was. Whatever he was dragging himself into with Monferno shouldn’t ever touch his sisters. If whatever experimentation tried to get to Monferno they’d have to get through him, but he’d be damned if they touched his sisters.

He tried a different tack instead. “So, what was the training for?”

“To make sure you can keep up,” Urahara smirked slightly, the same way he did whenever he was going to throw a new curveball at Ichigo. Ichigo tensed, and relaxed as Urahara dumped a pile of paper in front of him. “Your contract.”

Ichigo signed.

“Good, good,” Urahara clapped. “Let’s go downstairs.”

Downstairs was more sliding down a ladder and trying not to die while Urahara laughed at him from the bottom, but as soon as Ichigo shook himself out, Urahara released Monferno.

Monferno didn’t look great. His first reaction out of the pokéball was to growl and spin around, taking in his surroundings. Then he caught sight of Ichigo and leapt into a stance between Ichigo and Urahara.

“Oi, Monferno,” Ichigo crouched to his height, holding out some fruit. “Urahara’s a bastard, but he’s not a threat.”

Monferno clearly disagreed, hesitating as he looked between Urahara and Ichigo. “That guy works for the people who hurt us,” he said.

Knowing Monferno could talk didn’t make it much less surprising the first time he did. But Ichigo wasn’t there to be awed. “Really? Good to know, but if he’s going to try that now he’ll have to get through me.”

Monferno snorted, a small flicker of fire coming out of his mouth. “You don’t have any pokémon and they kept people strong enough to challenge the Elite Four of any prefect if necessary. Not a chance. Besides, I’d prefer someone with a little more going on up there.”

Ichigo glowered, bright red. “I’m seventh in my class, you know! I’m plenty smart!”

“Not up that high! I mean boobs, kid!”

Ichigo was just about ready to punt Monferno into the sun when Urahara cleared his throat and they both looked back that way. “If I may interrupt, it is in both of your best interests to work together, or you will be assigned apart.”

Was that a threat? Ichigo bristled. “Oi, bastard—”

Urahara stepped forward, smiling slightly. No, Ichigo realized. This was the threat. “I’d be nicer if I were you,” he said mildly. “I get to decide your fate after all.”

Monferno growled, and Ichigo glanced down at him. As much as he was having misgivings, they agreed on one thing at least—Urahara was an asshole, and there was no way they were going to let him win. Monferno looked up and met his eyes. This wasn’t the end of all their differences, but they were good enough to unite for a common goal.

“Excellent,” Urahara interrupted again, still smiling, although it had lost a touch of menace. “The next step of your training will be to fight me.” Faster than Ichigo or Monferno could react, he pulled out a pokéball. A Gardevoir popped out. Ichigo immediately noted the type advantage, and the way Gardevoir seemed bored even as Monferno tensed with early battle adrenaline.

He was sure Urahara had planned out every eventuality of this battle, especially going by the look on his face. Ichigo might not necessarily like the guy, but he figured knew him fairly well after the last month of close contact.

It wasn’t any kind of surprise when Monferno didn’t listen to him and Gardevoir wiped the floor with him, with only a few cues from Urahara. It also wasn’t any surprise that Monferno was ready to keep going when Urahara called the match, ending it by bringing Gardevoir back into her pokéball.

It was clear that they had plenty of ground left to cover. But first, they would have to heal. And second…”What’s your name?” Ichigo asked.

“Me?” Monferno tilted his head. “I haven’t had one. If we’re going to be working together, then you can come up with one if you want. I don’t really care about that.”

Ichigo hummed. “Kon, then. Because it’s close to ‘Mon’ and because the only reason we’re dealing with Urahara is the spirits.”

Kon wrinkled his nose and gave Ichigo a long, scrutinizing look, and then Urahara, and then back to Ichigo. But he didn’t say anything. More girls for him, in any case, if his nose was right.

* * *

Training continued, this time with Kon, until Urahara got a new boarder, a man named Kuchiki Byakuya. Ichigo’s first impression of him was that he was an uptight rich asshole. Urahara seemed sweet next to him, and his bruises’s bruises were testament to how sweet Urahara was not.

A little bit of judicious scheduling kept Ichigo and Kon away from Kuchiki for the most part. He was happier that way, although he doubted Kuchiki would care much either way. Kon was much easier to deal with when he wasn’t forced into close contact with Kuchiki’s Swellow, the only pokémon Ichigo ever saw him with. Apparently he was just as snooty as Kuchiki himself.

And then came the conversation that changed all of their lives.

Ichigo had been walking down the corridor of the owner’s home area of the shop in search of some fruit for him and Kon to share when he heard Kuchiki and Urahara talking.

“And why haven’t you put down that Monferno? If memory serves, those were your orders. A strange child shouldn’t be a problem, and if he’s endangering our operations then there is no reason to keep him around either.”

“I’m just using all of my resources,” Urahara replied calmly. “It would be better to get a new trained operative out of this than just a new body to hide.”

Ichigo started cursing Arceus as he tiptoed towards the room the noise was coming from. He couldn’t see through the paper, but how he wished to see what Urahara really thought about what he was saying.

Also, orders to kill Kon? Ichigo guessed that that was why Urahara was so invested in getting Ichigo a license post-haste. If Kon was legally Ichigo’s pokémon, then he had some protections that he wouldn’t while under the care of a Specialist, who, by law, couldn’t take Kon onto his team until he had been released into another’s care or a certified medical facility first. Pretty messed up in any case. But it also raised the question: what else had Urahara done that wasn’t just for being a bastard?

Ichigo snuck towards the kitchen as he dealt with this paradigm shift. It had been so easy to dislike the man, even when he was doing him a favor. And just because he was a surprisingly good person didn’t mean that he wasn’t a sarcastic, under-explaining, sadistic ass. Ichigo would probably have tried to step all over him if he hadn’t been.

He kept it quiet as he managed to get back down to where Kon was waiting in the basement without further disturbing anyone in the building. Kon, blessedly, didn’t ask why had taken so long as long as he got some of Ichigo’s food. That was okay. He wasn’t hungry.

Ichigo didn’t confront Urahara about what he’d heard. He didn’t see the point. Kuchiki glared at him and Kon some, and Ichigo glared right back, but he also didn’t try to take Kon so Ichigo didn’t go any further than that.

That didn’t mean he didn’t see Urahara at all differently. He saw the way the man handled his pokémon with care, how he never let training fights get further out of hand than a few bruises if a lesson wasn’t sinking in, and how he immediately treated any wounds. He saw the way the man watched Ichigo like he was interesting, and how gentle he was when little Hinata swung off her tree and asked about moving on. He’d seen most of it before, but he hadn’t properly _noticed_ him.

Ichigo watched, and learned, and soon enough he had offered Kon a spot officially on his team. With a token grumble about how Ichigo wasn’t a busty girl, Kon took it. Kuchiki left shortly thereafter, likely to report on them to some superiors. Urahara might have been a little more worried than he tried to let on, but Ichigo mentally dared them to come. Between Kon and Urahara, they’d rip whoever a new one.

Ichigo also went back through the documents Urahara had had him sign. Probably something he should have done first, but what’s done was done. Still, there was no way he was going to just kill a pokémon because he got orders to from someone, no matter what he signed. Sure, he’d do a lot for Kon, but he highly doubted Kon would be up for it either.

To be fair, he thought Urahara knew better than to ask it of them. That’s how Kuchiki blindsided him.

“Child, come.” Kuchiki ordered Ichigo one morning. Ichigo and Kon both bristled, causing Kuchiki to roll his eyes. “It’s just a mission, nothing to worry about, especially if that lug has been training you properly. Now, come, and show me what you’ve learned.”

Urahara appeared like he was called. “Oh, Kuchiki-taichō? What mission?”

“Yamask. A swarm has been infected with reiryoku from an insane Hollow, so we are being sent to put them down before they kill people.”

Ichigo grimaced. Yamask, he’d learned, was the result of an experiment to turn Hollows into useful pokémon. The resulting creatures still held onto their masks, but tended to stay around old places, “haunting” them. Ichigo thought they were best left alone unless they were causing a problem, like most things. But Urahara had told him that the party line was different, and heaven forefend that Kuchiki go against the party line.

“And you’re not invited.” Kuchiki finished, lip curling into a smug smile.

Urahara didn’t outwardly react, and Ichigo knew for sure he was on his own. He wondered again what Urahara had done to get on the administration’s bad side but he wasn’t all that impressed to be the one on the hook for it.

It wasn’t a long walk to the edge of town, although with Urahara’s eyes burning into their backs on the first leg it certainly felt like it. Kuchiki said nothing. Kon was shivering next to Ichigo, who was starting to wish that he was anywhere but there. A wind picked up, and Ichigo’s newly honed senses prickled with ghosts.

And then Ichigo realized that there were too many shadows. In those shadows were ghost pokémon. He made the mistake of looking a yamask in the eye. The yamask drew out into the open. Immediately, Kuchiki pulled out a pokéball, monotoned “Pyroar, kill!” and watched as Pyroar let loose a gout of flame, torching the yamask.

And then Kuchiki turned to Ichigo. “Your turn.”

Ichigo sputtered. “No!”

“Did you say no? That’s against the rules. I’ll write Urahara up for negligence and you a writ for re-education with someone more proper.”

Ichigo was hit with a longing for the man he thought he’d hated. He realized just how much he trusted Urahara by looking at this negative, right in front of him. Unfortunately, the negative was serious.

Yamask were scattering in all directions. Ichigo pulled out Monferno, but didn’t set up an attack. Instead, he watched as the first yamask reappeared. Fuck with Kuchiki would think— Urahara would back him. ‘Oi, Maskface.”

Yamask chittered at Ichigo. “I’m White, not Maskface. You going to try to kill me again?”

Ichigo shook his head. “Nope. Want to join my team? You look strong and you won’t have to deal with this kind of madness again.”

“Tempting, tempting,” White muttered. “You look strong enough, but I want a battle first.” Kuchiki was looking quietly scandalized in the corner. _Good._

Kon grinned, and immediately slid into a Taunt. Yamask grinned back, throwing back a Shadow Ball. It hit, pushing Kon back a step, but he quickly rebounded with Flame Wheel, which also connected. Yamask tried a new tactic, trying to Astonish Kon, who took a little more damage but didn’t flinch. Instead, he used another Flame Wheel, finally pushing back Yamask.

And then Swellow butted into the fight. “We are not here to make friends,” Kuchiki intoned. “Destroy or capture the threat and be done.”

Yamask hissed at Swellow and Kuchiki. “I changed my mind! I’ll work with you if I can destroy this bastard!”

Kon looked like he sorely wanted to agree, but didn’t say anything. He just crowded closer to the Yamask and looked back at Ichigo to see what he was going to do. One thing Ichigo knew for sure was that Kon wouldn’t be helping catch any pokémon for experimentation anytime soon, and he was only marginally more likely to kill another pokémon. It was about as likely that Ichigo would ever ask him to.

Ichigo met Yamask’s eyes and threw a pokéball his way. It connected, and rolled slightly but Yamask went inside without much trouble. Kuchiki made a point of huffing and looking around while Ichigo collected the pokéball.

“The rest got scared off by your antics.” Kuchiki reported. “I will be reporting this!”

Ichigo rolled his eyes behind Kuchiki’s back and remained silent on their way back to the Shōten. Ichigo wondered what Urahara would make of Yamask.

* * *

Kuchiki left that evening.

When Ichigo told Urahara what he had done to cause it, he had the unusual pleasure of watching Urahara’s emotions flash across his face for a moment.

“He seems sane enough, if a bit battle-hungry.” Ichigo cut in right as Urahara caught hold of himself, extending the moment. He held in a small smirk as Urahara shook his head slowly. It was okay: Urahara would see what he saw in White, and he’d help Ichigo keep him on his team, if he was the man Ichigo thought he was.

And if he wasn’t? Ichigo was loyal to his friends, human or not.

“The Seireitei will be out for blood,” Urahara warned him.

“Let them come then!”

“They’ll kill you like this. Come on.”

* * *

The second bout of training wasn’t better or worse than the first, just different. Ichigo no longer resented Urahara, but his emotions still distracted him, especially when he managed to nerf Urahara’s hat early on in their games. There was something about Urahara that was distracting him, aside from the newer trust.

And his bruises’ bruises had bruises, but that was nothing new. Ichigo was limber as ever, fast, and White and Kon got on like a pair of kittens watching Mama. Urahara’s pokémon routinely trounced them as well, but they fought well together unless the fight du jour was for Ichigo’s appreciation, at which point nothing was held back.

Urahara had told him once that he should be proud of the process he had made, especially with such prickly pokémon. Ichigo had proceeded to show him the truth in the tales of pokémon and owners looking alike by threatening to set fire to his hat.

And then Urahara laughed, face lighting up as he did, and Ichigo knew he was staring but couldn’t stop. At the very least, Urahara didn’t say anything. Ichigo knew he knew, so he wouldn’t say anything until Urahara did.

Still, one thing hung over their heads: The Seireitei. They would be coming after Ichigo; the only question was when and how. All he could do was to keep his friends close and his pokémon closer. His friends noticed his overall tenseness about it but didn’t comment, just crowding closer in turn. They had known that not everything was hunky dory with Kon either, even if they didn’t know how far it all went.

And then came the assassins. He heard Urahara before he properly woke up. He would regret not seeing what had happened for a good long while, but Urahara was standing between him and the enemy, who was downed. _Assassins._ _Arceus above._ The only thing stranger than assassins in the government who would have killed Kon in his pokéball and framed him for it was the fact that Urahara knew how to neutralize them, like he was familiar.

Ichigo didn’t ask. Urahara smiled a small smile at him and didn’t answer.

Then came someone a little more high-ranking.

“FIGHT ME!” A large man with bells in his hair called out, catching Ichigo on his way over to the Shōten after school. “PROVE MY EXISTENCE!”

Ichigo booked it to the Shōten’s back door, panting as he locked it. Urahara raised a singular eyebrow.

“Bell man—” He gasped out.

Urahara’s eyebrow went down and he looked thoughtful. “Kenpachi. I wonder why they sent him. He’s rather obvious, and there’s always collateral damage.”

Ichigo just scowled at him. “What will it take for them to back off?”

Urahara shrugged. “Kenpachi? Leave him, and he’ll go wandering until he can find some other trainer to fight. The Seireitei? Dismantling the entire system, most likely. It’s built to only accommodate those who fit into its narrow definition of correct.”

Ichigo’s lips turned down, and he thought back to the days when he had been just a normal student who could see ghosts and occasionally brought fruit for a half-wild Monferno. He hadn’t been able to properly help the local ghosts in some time, and doom hadn’t been hanging over all their heads at the time.

Urahara, at least had a plan. When Ichigo heard it, his immediate reaction was to reply in the negative. But then he chewed on it, figuring out exactly how it would work, and what Urahara was risking for him.

He squared his shoulders and got to recruiting.

* * *

Avoiding Kenpachi was simple enough, until the right moment. He’d stacked the deck in his favor, choosing the time and place of their meeting. His friends and their pokémon helped him prepare the site beforehand to seed it with traps he could pull with Kenpachi none the wiser. All he had to do was defeat Kenpachi’s four pokémon with his two. The easiest part, he joked.

Staring down Kenpachi hadn’t _felt_ like the easiest part, but with a few carefully constructed environmental effects, He’d managed. And when Kenpachi came after him with his own body, Ichigo used those advantages to counter him successfully. By Kenpachi’s own admission, that made Ichigo the Kenpachi now, and head of his division. It was an in, if nothing else, and gave him the authority necessary to make the others in the Seireitei have a much harder time finding him.

The second half of the plan was much more drawn out. After Kenpachi wandered back off somewhere, Ichigo handed the reins back over to Urahara, who figured out how to run the division remotely, under Ichigo’s name, while Ichigo kept up his local responsibilities—going to school, doing a circuit to talk to the local ghosts, being seen with his friends, helping out at the clinic. If anyone was watching him, they’d see him acting normally.

Ichigo wasn’t sure what Urahara was doing, except that it kept him busy enough that he didn’t remember to eat or sleep. He found himself over at the shop often enough with ‘leftovers’ from a dinner he or Yuzu had made, or a pot of tea, or, on one memorable occasion, a pillow that mysteriously found itself falling from the ceiling and onto Urahara’s head. One of Urahara’s pokémon had passed it to him on the way in, a frown on their face.

Ichigo also trained with Kon and White until they could work together seamlessly. But the real kicker had been when Ichigo had put on White’s mask.

Humans weren’t supposed to do it, he knew. If the line between human and pokémon blurred too much, he’d get killed for it. But considering he was already going against a bit of the government, even a bit that was going against its own laws, he figured he had bigger things to worry about.

Wearing White’s mask did a few things. First, it gave him Yamask’s special ability-binding any other ability he touched. It also made him physically stronger and more durable. A good thing that Ichigo was used to solving things with his fists then. He wasn’t great at it yet, but he wasn’t going to need it for their plans, and it did make a good ace in the hole if they ever needed it, or if Seireitei sent more assassins.

They bided their time until the school term ended and Ichigo could disappear for a while without undue suspicion. And then he strode right into the Eleventh division like he knew what he was doing.

There was paperwork. So much paperwork. Ichigo’s eyes felt like they were bleeding by the end of the first hour, and it just kept coming. He did it though, keeping as many people running around their systems with his files as he could.

In the meanwhile, Urahara snuck into the servers. He’d needed a hardwired connection, and Ichigo’s work meant the system was dealing with an uptick in unusual activities anyway, helping to cover his trail. He was looking for their search algorithms and their assignment queue, to be precise.

Two hours later, Urahara had completely reprogrammed them both to only show them what he had approved. As a bonus, he’d spent another hour helping Ichigo with his work before packing up and leaving.

He chuckled as Ichigo stomped back into the Shōten that night, scowling like he’d had to fight off the entire Second Division, offering him a cup of tea. “Whatever you need, Kurosaki-taichō,” he teased.

It wasn’t going to be easy. Ichigo had taken on a Division before he’d even finished high school, and Urahara wasn’t going to have the time to run it anymore, not if he was going to be finagling the systems to only send people who were going to kill pokémon after the pokémon who had already killed people. Ichigo couldn’t prove it, but he was pretty sure that the entire thing was mostly for his benefit, and he had an inkling why.

Still, he was smart about it. Urahara and Ichigo shared their first kiss under a sprig of mistletoe, with both their pokémon looking on. Easy enough to write off if he’d read it wrong. He hadn’t, by the knowing smile.

He graduated high school only a few months after, and officially moved out of the clinic and into the Shōten, his father crying the whole way. The Eleventh Division was flourishing even without him there, and Ichigo had ended up with two more pokémon: a Nuzleaf and a Trevanant who had sung the ghosts of travelers who never made it out of their forest into the afterlife.

Ichigo wondered sometimes why Urahara had taken pity on him at all. It would have been so much easier to have cut Ichigo out and given Kon to the Seireitei or killed him. Instead they were deep in the mess, the both of them, and regularly breaking the law to save affected pokémon. The Seireitei hadn’t caught on yet, and it had been long enough that he doubted they would, but there was still some risk involved in the upkeep. Ichigo was pretty sure Urahara wouldn’t have done all of it if he hadn’t been there.

When he had brought it up to Urahara, he’d just said, “I never claimed to be a good person. But you—you make me want to be a better one.”

Ichigo had smiled and kissed him. “I like you too.”

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry if the ending might have been a little rushed. This dragged on a lot longer and farther than it was ever intended to go. I hope y'all liked it though! :D


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